The new building will consolidate the center’s outpatient
and rehabilitation services under one roof. Inpatient services will
continue to be provided on the seventh floor of the University Hospital,
which will be connected to the center by a covered walkway.

While the construction start date is dependent on fundraising efforts
now under way, groundbreaking for the 160,000-square-foot facility
is expected to occur in four or five years.

The new building will consolidate several existing services —
including the Kluge
Children’s Rehabilitation Center located on Route 250
West — that have been offered from various locations around
Charlottesville. A short-stay unit for overnight observation, a
post-operation observation unit, a pediatric cancer infusion center
and outpatient clinics for children with autism, cerebral palsy
and diabetes will also find a home in the new facility.

“It
is difficult for parents with children who have special health care
needs, because [now] they have to go so many different places [to
receive care],” said Dr. Robert L. Chevalier, Benjamin Armistead
Shepherd Professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics.
The Children’s Medical Center sees about 60,000 outpatients
and between 3,000 to 4,000 admitted patients a year, Chevalier said.
About 95 percent of CMC patients are from Virginia.

The Medical Center has already committed about $10 million to the
Children’s Medical Center building project, leaving $37 million
to be raised through private donations.

Architects Stanley Beaman & Sears of Atlanta have been hired
to design the four-story center, which Chevalier said will be a
“showplace,” citing their work in Chicago, Atlanta and
Augusta, Ga.

A
MASTER PLAN FOR THE HEALTH SYSTEM

Community members got a preview of the U.Va. Health System’s
new architectural master plan at a briefing June 15.In addition
to the creation of a new Children’s Medical Center building
in the vicinity of the Corner district, the plan also includes the
construction of the following new facilities:

• Core Laboratory. The University is now
navigating the City of Charlottesville’s permit process —
a necessary step to building a General Clinical Research Center
Core Laboratory, which will test human samples such as blood and
urine, at the corner of West Main and 11th streets. In April, the
Board of Visitors approved the design for the lab, which is currently
located on the second floor of the Medical Center and needs to be
moved to accommodate hospital expansion. The new 12,000-square-foot
lab will replace some existing buildings, while preserving Preston
House, a historic landmark on West Main Street that currently houses
a bank.

• Cancer Center. A 130,000-square-foot Cancer
Center, estimated to cost between $65 million and $70 million,
is being planned. The center will offer many services the hospital
offers now, such as radiation, oncology and the breast center, but
the services will be concentrated in one place, with new equipment.

• Parking Garages. The existing West Parking
Garage will be demolished to make room for the Cancer Center. The
331 spaces lost to the demolition will be replaced by a new 1,200-space
North Parking Garage planned for the parking lot behind the Blake
Center. Groundbreaking is scheduled for early summer 2005.

• New Street. Preliminary plans are under
discussion for a possible new street along the Norfolk and Western
Railroad tracks from either Shamrock or Maywood streets up to Crispell
Drive to relieve traffic pressure on Jefferson Park Avenue. Funding
for the extension road is included in a $51 million request for
federal transportation money to fund, among other things, a parking
garage for the South Lawn Project. The transportation reauthorization
bill is currently being debated in a House/Senate conference committee.